Jewel Explains The Record Industry to Us

Remember Jewel? Who will save your soul? Lived in a van? Down by the river? Or in a snowbank or something? There was some sob story attached. Anyway, she’s not popular anymore and she tells us why.

“In my lifetime, I’ve seen the record industry taken to its knees,” says singer-songwriter Jewel, whose current album, “Goodbye Alice in Wonderland,” has paled next to her 1996 debut album “Pieces of Me,” which shipped 12 million units. “When I was first signed at 19, the idea was that one sold records. Now there is no hope of money by signing for a record. You do it as promotion.”

This awards season, she co-wrote and sang “Quest for Love” for Luc Besson’s “Arthur and the Invisibles” soundtrack, the ninth single she’s written for film, beginning with Sean Penn’s 1995 pic “The Crossing Guard.”

More of Jewel’s fascinating take on the recording industry after the jump.

“In the last year, I performed on TV shows, since radio isn’t playing my genre,” Jewel adds, “nor are record companies developing artists like me; they’re going for the easy cool thing.”

It’s true. I’m a soaps guy, and I saw her on Young & the Restless this past year. She was playing at some benefit Nick and Sharon threw to raise money for awareness about when your teen daughter drives a drunk guy home who she has a crush on but sucks at driving so she crashes and dies. So I guess, awareness about driver’s ed? I don’t know. Anyway, Jewel sang at it and I was like – damn wasn’t she making movies and hanging out with Sean Penn and now this? And then I thought harder and remembered when she released that dance album a couple of years ago where she writhed in front of a firetruck, so I knew all the signs of her eventual downfall were there already.